


Falling

by MayQueen517



Series: Pacific Rim Tumblr prompts [3]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-20
Updated: 2013-09-20
Packaged: 2017-12-27 02:56:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/973484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayQueen517/pseuds/MayQueen517
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her glasses slide down her nose and she wrinkles her face up when it happens and he's mildly mortified to be so distracted by her.</p><p>Hermann goes back to teaching, resolving to not give it any other thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a tumblr prompt courtesy of fuzzybooks! They prompted me with the song 'Falling' by State of Drama (which is where I got the title) (original, right?) and this slowly spun out of control.
> 
> Quick Note:  
> I imagine Vanessa to be about 6'1 or so and that she has hair like Jasika Nicole that's subject to change color at any time. Thanks to MarchingJayBird, I also kind of see her as Beyonce. So, there you have it. 
> 
> Humongous thanks to verbosewordsmith! <3
> 
> Enough of my blathering: Enjoy!

There's a new student in his Comparative Mathematics class and for a moment, Hermann is startled. It's not that he doesn't know her - on the contrary, everyone on the campus knows Vanessa Hanlon. He's seen some of her modeling (she's on the side of nearly every bus in the area, how could he not?) but he didn't know that she'd even be in his class.

Not that there's that many in his class to begin with.

However, he finds himself distracted, just enough, by the slightly frizzy blonde curls that are piled atop her head. Her glasses slide down her nose and she wrinkles her face up when it happens and he's mildly mortified to be so distracted by her.

Hermann goes back to teaching, resolving to not give it any other thought.

==

Except that he starts to see her everywhere. Newton's office (they act like old friends, a fact that leaves Hermann bewildered), the cafe on campus. She comes by his office at least once a day to say hello, even when she doesn't have class. She sounds like she might be from London or even Nottingham and there's something in that that interests him; both being so far from home.

She's in colleague's classes and it's always a startling factor to see her striding through the hallway over to him. In flats, she is nearly a full four inches taller than him and she rarely wears flats. He finds, strangely enough, that he doesn't mind.

"Dr. Gottlieb!" she calls out one day as he steps into his office. There's a stack of books on his desk that she nearly topples over with an elbow upon entering. She curses and grabs for them at the same time as he does and they share a laugh before she clears her throat.

"Ms. Hanlon, how may I help you?" he asks as the skin on her cheeks colors slightly. 

"Um, well. Actually, I'll be missing the Thursday and Friday lecture. I have a job those days and I was wondering if I could get the classwork early to see if I can puzzle it out on my own," she says. He blinks and stares at her for a moment. His own glasses nearly slide off his nose and he pushes them back up in distraction. He starts to rifle through his papers.

"Ah, well. Yes, yes; that should be fine," he says as she smiles at him. 

"Will that be all?" he asks, curious. 

"Most people ask, you know," she says finally. He looks over her from the rim of his glasses, straightening up before sitting down. His leg is killing him something fierce today and he's gratified to see her sit down across from him.

"About?"

"My job," she says carefully. Hermann nods slowly, pulling his glasses off to let them rest on his chest.

"I do admit to a certain curiosity, but only in that so many people seem surprised," he says finally. She stares at him and he starts to think that perhaps he said the wrong thing. She doesn't say anything for a moment but the smile that slowly crosses onto her face is a thing of beauty.

"That might be the nicest thing anyone's said to me here, Dr. Gottlieb," she says finally. The longer he listens to her speak, the more he could swear that she's not from London or Nottingham at all. 

"If you'd like," he says, hesitating as she watches him, "I can run off some copies of the lectures on Thursday and Friday and we can go over them Monday before class."

"That'd be fantastic," she says enthusiastically. They chat a bit more before she has to go and when she leaves, he sits in his office in silence; or, at least, until Newton shows up for his afternoon class.

Standing, Hermann shuts the door, blocking the noise of him out.

===

It isn't anything they fall into. It is conversations in the hallway as he goes to the teacher's lounge for a meeting and her to her next class. It is too many consults about a lecture to count. It's not about falling into anything, but more like building something.

He's not sure what's being built, but he has enough sense to not dwell on it. She goes on modeling jobs and he finds that she and Newton seem to have an exceptionally antagonistic friendship and Newton seems to appear at the worst times. She finishes his class with flying colors, gaining top marks on the exam and she hugs him in delight. He and Newton stand beside her when she gets the news a Kaiju has attacked Sydney where her father and step-mother were vacationing. They stand with her as the missile strike takes down the beast and destroys the city.

She doesn't breakdown and cry, she simply steels herself and both Hermann and Newton watch her throw herself headlong into her school. 

She declares what she'd like to do, that she'd like to be a counselor for the displaced and Newton, of all people, becomes her adviser. 

Hermann watches them sometimes as he answers emails, watches the way the circles under her eyes appear more and more frequently and the way she still manages to come and chat with him. Sometimes he comes back from class to find her curled up in one of the chairs, idly typing something on a laptop. On some of those days, they chat and on some of them, he plays Gershwin at a low volume while he grades papers.

In November of 2014, he's approached by the newly minted Pan Pacific Defense Corps to write some code for them. He's flown out to the Pitcairn Islands where a newly funded and built center resides and he spends a grand total of three, exhausting weeks writing code for what will become the first Jaegers.

He is humbled by these machines and that his code goes into them. He barely has time for himself, rushing to figure out the puzzle of making the machinery move, giving the PPDC what they want. He takes time to answer email from Vanessa - for she is Vanessa now - and when he does, he finds that something in him relaxes.

He gets back State side and sleeps for two and a half days. It's December and there's snow on the ground as he eats breakfast ravenously and takes the bus to the campus. He can't talk about the work he's spent three weeks doing but he finds that nobody is really curious anyways.

Except for Newton and Vanessa. 

"Seriously, not even one tiny tidbit?" Newton asks from where he's draped himself over a chair. Vanessa grins, toying with some of her hair (it's red today, vibrant and still as voluminous as ever) that knocks her glasses off her head. She catches them as Hermann looks over at them both.

"So sorry, Newton, but I'm contractually oblig-"

"Yeah, yeah, stick in the mud," Newton says cheerfully as he bounds out of the room, presumably to harass another colleague. Vanessa snorts and shakes her head as Hermann looks over to her. She twirls her hair around her finger before letting it go and Hermann follows the movement before Vanessa speaks.

"If this is too forward, just tell me. But, um. I was wondering if maybe you'd like to get dinner? There's this pub near my apartment that does a really decent fry-up and it reminded me of home. So I thought that maybe you'd like to grab dinner together," Vanessa says, fidgeting. 

"That sounds lovely," he says as her face breaks out into a beaming grin. 

===

They meet for dinner three other times before Hermann even realizes he's being courted. And it is exactly that, he muses; a courting. They go for dinner and by the fourth time, he puts his fork down and leans back in the booth, looking across at her.

Her lipstick has worn away by now, save for a smudge at the corner of her lips and she's knocked over her water glass once by now. She gestures and without thinking, he picks up the water glass, nearly missing her elbow. She sheepishly grins at him, taking the glass from him, fingers brushing his.

"Were you ever going to tell me this was a date?" he asks, leaning forward so he can watch her expression turn mischievous. He remembers the smirk she'd had on her face when she had surprised him with a hug after her exam. He wants to take her hand and hold on until she asks him to let go.

"I thought a renowned math genius like the great Hermann Gottlieb would figure it out eventually," Vanessa says, trailing her fork through what's left of dinner on her plate.

"I must admit," he says, hesitating as she looks up at him. Her hair has started to fade from the red and he wonders how long they've been heading towards this moment, "I seem to have been rather slow on the uptake," he says as she lets out a bark of laughter.

She reaches for his hand, knocking her fork and spoon off of her plate. Hermann can't help the laugh as he takes her hand, threading their fingers together. It's quiet, in a way; nothing at all like he would have expected as they slide out of the booth and pay. 

He looks over and up at her, smiling as they walk out the door and onto the sidewalk.

"I'm very glad you clued in," she says softly. He squeezes her hand, walking slowly with her.

They walk in silence, weaving in and out of people before she stops this, looking up and pointing needlessly, "This is me," she says, reaching up to fiddle with her glasses.

"Perhaps," he murmurs, reaching up to push some of her hair behind her ear, "you'd like to come with me to lunch tomorrow?" 

"Lunch, huh?" she asks as he nods, leaning up to kiss her slowly. She doesn't surge forward, but he can feel the sigh she lets out as their lips touch. They kiss slowly and her hands thread into his hair as she crowds as close as she can. When they part, she laughs huskily, pressing her lips against his again.

"What are your feelings about breakfast?" she asks as he laughs, kissing her again.

===

He wakes up alone and confused. He sits up in bed and blinks in the bright, morning sunlight. He can hear music coming from the other room as he pulls his boxers on. Hermann uses the bathroom, washing his hands as he looks in the mirror, suppressing a laugh. He looks as if he's been up all night and it's not terribly far from the truth.

He takes a few minutes to stretch his leg, rubbing the muscle until it no longer feels stiff as he walks out of her bedroom and into the den area. He can see her in the kitchen, her sweatpants hanging off of her hips and his shirt draped over her, buttoned haphazardly. He watches her dance around the kitchen, singing along with whatever pop song's on the radio before she notices him. She grins at him, turning the radio down as he walks over.

"So, what _are_ your feelings on breakfast?"

They share a kiss for a long moment and Hermann sighs against her lips, feeling them curve into a grin as he pulls back, smiling up at her.

"Very favorable, indeed."

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to prompt me with something, you can find me on Tumblr at MayQueen517!


End file.
